


Pinocchio Does Outer Space

by Crankygrrl



Category: Alien Series, Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-19
Updated: 2006-07-19
Packaged: 2018-10-16 07:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10566462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crankygrrl/pseuds/Crankygrrl
Summary: Do biosynthoids dream of organic sheep?





	

_The Betty_ shuddered and groaned as she pulled out of the atmosphere and left gravity's plucking fingers behind. There was a final jolt as _The Betty_ cleared the mesosphere and the AG kicked in. The ride smoothed out and all that was left was the gentle hum of the engines vibrating up through the decking.  
  
Call felt the inertial tug as Ripley banked _The Betty_ into a lazy arc that would lead them into deep space. Up in the cockpit, Ripley would be setting the autopilot, locking down the coordinates and programming the acceleration burn. The sigh escaped her lips before she realized it and the tight band cutting into her chest since they were portside seemed to ease away. Call always felt better when they hit the black, like it was easier to breathe somehow without the weight of planetary amto and gravity pressing down on her, which was all kinds of fucking stupid since Call didn't breathe.

At least, not in a conventional sense.

The motion of respiration powered some biosynthetic processes but none of her critical systems: you could not, for example, suffocate an auton. The in-out motion of her chest was nothing more than a cosmetic simulation designed to soothe nervous humans, just like the sophisticated algorithms that determined her 'emotions'. Given the proper combination of stimuli, Call could laugh and cry just like a real girl. But whether or not feeling human made you human was the kind of deep philosophical question that Call figured was beyond the pay grade of a third officer on a junk freighter. Who had time for that navel-gazing shit when you had a ship to keep in the air and cargo to move?  
  
Or so she told herself. Truth was, she was hiding out in her cubby hole down in the cargo hold, waiting for _The Betty_ go quiet around her as the crew settled in for the run to Whitefish. There really wasn't anything for her to do: the cargo had been squared away hours ago. Legitimate goods for a change, barely enough trouble to justify her job as cargo master. Running contraband there was the challenge of making a full ship look empty or an empty ship full — juggling fuel expenditures, waybills, landing chits to keep the logs looking right for any curious port authorities. Straight cargo didn't leave Call much to do beyond checking that the tie-downs were secure and nothing came loose during take-off. She had time to ponder the exigencies of her own existences throughout all the watches of the night, if she chose.

Call chose not to.

Ripley was sitting alone in the crew room when Call climbed out of the hold, looking for a cup of coffee and her rack. The lights were off and the only illumination came from the glowing scroll of numbers down the wall screen — live feed from the autopilot — and the various galley displays. The spook show lighting made it all that much creepier as Ripley's voice floated out of the darkness. "What are you looking for?"  
  
Call jerked, startled. There were only four people on the damned ship and she managed to walk right into the one person she was trying to avoid. Her throat went tight and she felt her face get hot — Call wondered if the synthetic that programmed her to be shy and anxious was still functional. And if it hurt bad when you kneed a synthetic in the groin?

"Jesus, Ripley —"

  

"- Why do you like these places so much?"

Call surveyed the bar with distaste. She thought it was a scum pit - full of boomers and mercs and other undesirables, the likes of with even _The Betty_ ’s crew of ne'er do wells found distasteful.

Ripley just smiled, leading the way past the graffiti like hieroglyphs from a dying civilization across the doorposts and a couple dry humping - "It feels like home."

Call shook her head. Johner, laughing, followed Ripley close. "Damn, baby, you’re even more fucked up that I thought."

She watched them go: Ripley throwing a look over her shoulder part challenge, part come-on; Johner curling his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and pulling back her head for an invasive, tonsil-smacking kiss.

"Jesus."

Behind her, Vriess swore in Joile, "It’s bad enough, I gotta see that on the ship."

Call stepped out of the way and his chair cleared their path to the bar - sharp corners at knee height — while she watched the two of them. Ripley was sinewy and lithe in black leather and attitude; Johner, a muscled mass of scar tissue with close-cut steel wool hair wearing combats that had seen more war zones than washings. "You’d think she’d have better taste."

"Brandy," Vriess demanded from the bartender and swivelled towards her to start bitching about their crew shortage - they still hadn’t replaced the three they left behind on the Auriga. Call had coffee, preferring the caffeine buzz to the big nothing of synthetic alcohol filtered through a synthetic liver, and listened with half her attention. The other half focused on Ripley and Johner entwined on a couch at the back of the room, watching as his hand slid under the edge of her leather vest, over white skin to the rounded underside of her breasts.

Call sipped her coffee. It wasn't voyeurism, she told herself. She sure as fuck wasn't jealous: just curious. Worried, maybe: Johner may have decided that they were all one big psycho-fuck family after what happened but that didn't mean she trust him —

"FUCKER!!!"

The elbow came out of nowhere and caught her on the bridge of the nose. She'd been distracted, hadn't noted the two mercs beside her get into a shoving match, hadn't moved out of their way when the first punch got thrown out.

Call stumbled backwards and fell against Vriess' chair. She couldn't stop herself, her hands clasped over her mouth and nose tighter than an airlock seal.

"Call!" He grabbed her at the shoulders, steadying her, balancing her on her own feet. Call curled into herself, chin tucked into her chest. She could feel the wet running across her upper lip. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," she moaned.

Vriess reached past her and grabbed the merc with the wild arms by the collar, spinning him around - "Espece de con!* Why don’t you be more careful!?"

Pointy-elbows jerked loose. "Fuck you, cripple." He drove the steel-toe of his boots into the man on the floor in front of him.

Vriess threw the brandy at him. "Who you calling cripple, tapette?**"

The merc pulled a knife. Vriess reversed his chair, spinning left to face him head-on. The neon light about the bar flashed on the blade as it stopped a metre short of Vriess.

"Ah-ah," Johner rumbled. He tightened his grip around the merc’s wrist, muscular fingers grinding delicate bones together. "You don’t want to do that."

"Fuck you." The merc swung at Johner’s head with his free hand. Johner took the punch on his forearm and wrapped it around the other man's arm, trapping it against his ribs. He took one step forward and drove the solid bone of his forehead into the bridge of the other man’s nose. The merc crumpled to the ground like a discarded accordion, the knife falling from slack fingers as he collapsed in on himself.

Johner let go of his arms, tsking as he loomed over the unconscious body. "Told ya, man."

"You okay?" Ripley touched her shoulder. Call sniffed, "M’fine."

She pulled the sleeve of her coverall down over her fist and scrubbed at her face with it.

"You sure?"

Call straightened and Ripley watched her with a searching concern. She grasped Call’s jaw, tilting her face upward, checking her for damage. The gesture was intimate and maternal and it skeeved Call the fuck out. She jerked her head away, surreptitiously rubbing her sleeve against her thigh, rubbing the gleaming pearly fluid into the fabric of her clothes before anyone noticed that she wasn’t so much bleeding as leaking.

"She okay?" Johner sidled up against Ripley.

"Since when do you care, Johner?" Call snarled.

He backed away, palms up. "Well excuse me for giving a shit."

He stalked back to his table, stopping on the way to kick the merc in the kidneys and warn him to take his sorry self home before he really pissed Johner off.

"That was rude," Ripley said, bemused.

Call shrugged, tugging her coverall into place across her shoulders.

"We don’t serve her kind in here." The bartender directed his comment at Ripley. She gripped Vriess’ shoulder before he could say anything back. He fell silent as she turned to the bar.

"You mean brunettes? Or you mean short women?"

The bartender made a weary face. "You know what I’m talking about," he said. "Just take her out of here; I don’t want more trouble."

Ripley’s lips peeled back from her teeth. She leaned forward slightly. "Then don’t make any."

Call knew that look – the bad look, when Ripley’s eyes went obsidian and cold. It meant someone was going to get fucked up. She clutched Ripley’s arm. "Ripley…"

"What?" Ripley deliberately misunderstood. "I want to know who this prick thinks isn't good enough to drink in this vermin-ridden shithole."

The bartender looked from Call to Ripley. He looked like he might piss himself. "I don’t make the rules -"

Ripley grabbed his shirt, fisting her fingers in it and pulling him halfway across the bartop. "Then I want to talk to who does," she purred.

"Ripley!" Call yanked on Ripley’s arm. Ripley let go of his shirt and the bartender slid back across the bar. "It’s fine. I’m leaving," she said to him.

"Call…" she could feel Ripley watching her as she walked out the door.

Behind her, Vriess' chair hummed and squealed as he turned to follow her. "Putain,***" he spat at the bartender.

And then she was in the alley, in a back-assward part of portside, alone. Vriess followed her back to _The Betty_ but neither of them said anything the whole of the way back.

 

"Jesus, Ripley!" Call clutched at her chest - one more affectation on the part of some long-dead designer?

"Sorry," Ripley reached behind her. The light level in the room grew a few amps with an electric hum and the shadows faded into the corners. She sat alone on the far side of the galley table, a bottle and one glass in front of her.

"Yeah," Call said. She looked for a mug but someone had actually cleaned and stowed the galleyware.

Ripley stood and reached into a cabinet above her. She put another glass on the table and half-filled it with clear liquor. "Here."

Call approached it cautiously. "Johner’s?"

"Vodka."

"Ah." Call picked up the glass and sipped carefully, feeling the cold sear as she swallowed. She coughed, setting the glass down. From the far end, Ripley stretched out a long leg under the table and kicked a chair out for Call. She gripped the chairback and slung herself into the seat. Taking her glass, she took another sip. "Where’d you find it?"

"Around." Ripley grinned around her glass. It was an expression that didn’t encourage questions.

And, face it, Call didn’t really want to know.

"About earlier," Ripley began. Call interrupted her.

"It doesn’t matter," she said, shaking her head, "I felt self-conscious, is all. I’m sorry I lost my temper."

Call kept her eyes on her glass, watching the clear alcohol bend the light at the bottom of the glass but she could feel Ripley studying her, the weight of her eyes.

"I’m not your responsibility, Call."

She looked up. Ripley’s eyes were clear, her expression could have been described as sympathetic; rueful perhaps. "You keep putting yourself between me and a fight and you’re going to get hurt."

"I -" Call found herself at a loss for words. She drank instead. "That’s not what I was doing."

"Really?" Ripley smiled and drained her glass. "Then why’d you let that shitheel throw you out?"

"Synthetic rights -"

"Bullshit." Ripley poured herself another shot. "You’re not my mother, you’re not my creator and you’re not my keeper, Call."

Call looked at the floor, at her boots, at anything else. "I - I…"

"You really are an asshole." Ripley made an ugly laugh.

Her eyes jerked up to Ripley's.

"Asshole." Ripley repeated but this time she smiled fondly as she said it. "Just one more asshole trying to save the world." She shook her head.

Call found her voice. "Look who’s talking."

She nodded, drained and refilled her glass. "That’s how I know what I’m talking about. Playing the hero just gets you a world of hurt."

"You really believe that?" Call drained her glass and reached for the bottle. Ripley nudged it closer across the table to her.

"I don’t know. I thought once maybe it was enough to save one person." Ripley’s smile was wry and bitter. "Look how that turned out."

Call shrugged. "Well, you saved my ass. And Vriess', Johner's…"

Ripley drained her glass again and reached for the bottle, shaking her head. "So —"

"'Just one more asshole trying to save the world'," Call repeated. She pulled the vodka back to her side of the table.

Ripley laughed but a real laugh this time. "I guess that's why I fit in on this tub, then. One big bucket of assholes."

Call started laughing and in a moment, Ripley was chuckling along with her. She found herself smiling as she reached for the bottle again — tomorrow was surely going to suck, synthetic gut or not, by the time all the booze worked its way through her system — as her existential angst dropped away.

"Y'know," Ripley said after the laughter had petered out. "You should have let me hit that guy."

"Why?" Call shrugged. "He didn't make the rules."

"Feh - that's no an excuse!"

"It doesn't matter," she said quietly. And it didn't, not anymore.

"It matters to me," Ripley said. There was a righteous glint in her eye that lit a warm glow inside Call. After all, given the proper combination of stimuli, she could laugh and cry just like a real girl.

She could even love.

"Yeah, I know."

That's why it didn't matter.

**Author's Note:**

> *mark rough transliterations of certain Joile slang. Approximate English analog below:
> 
> *Stupid fucker, motherfucker  
> **Fag  
> ***Asshole, cocksucker


End file.
